Fresh from the UK & Ireland Maximo User Group in Belfast last week (25th May 2022), our MD Donna McWilliams shares her key highlights from the event.
First up was the networking evening the night before the conference, held at the iconic Titanic Hotel. It was a fun evening of catching up with likeminded individuals, passionate about Maximo, but in a very human way. It’s not a technical event and very driven towards the end user. The people who attend are very open about their experiences, positive and negative and it is a great way to learn lessons from other people and other industries who have been there and done it.
The conference kicked off with Wightlink and their experiences with IOT monitoring and advanced visualisation to tackle issues around reliability and performance. There were great examples of how 3D modelling worked to scan the ship with the scan being integrated with Maximo. Also the scan took 1 day, compared to previous modelling which can take at least 6 months.
Next up was Full Circle Generation talking about their Maximo Journey, implementing Maximo 7.6.1.2 for a waste management plant. Alan Cassells candidly talked about their challenges around data, user adoption and running paper systems during roll-out and how they overcame these challenges. They have already realised benefits around stores and inventory control, cost reporting, backlog visibility and compliance measurement.
Drax Power and Bouygues both gave presentations on their experiences of implementing Scheduling tools. They had very different stories with tough challenges – particularly around data, adoption/change management (this seemed to be a recurring theme throughout the day). Richard from Drax said that the user groups helped them in their decision making and learning from other people’s experiences.
Dave Gasdia joined us virtually to talk about the Maximo Application Suite (MAS8). They shared the roadmap for fixes and improvements throughout the year and into 2023. End of support for current versions of Maximo has been reviewed, with v7.6.0 having an extended support option to 2024 and support for v7.6.1 ending Sept 2025 with an extended support option to 2028.
And to top the presentations off, Doug Coombs of IBM blew us all away with his presentation about the Mayflower Autonomous Vessel. It’s an incredible feat of engineering and use of AI technology. Have a look here – https://mas400.com/. I was so impressed that I showed my kids the video and my daughter wanted to do a presentation on it for her class. I told her that the ship could pick up whale song and that the data they collect about pollution is sent to universities to analyse and learn from. In her presentation she had written that the ship can listen to whale song and is sent to universities to translate into English 😊 now wouldn’t that be something!
All presentations can be accessed from the library on the IBM Community pages here – MUG Presentations May 2022 (note, you will need an IBMID to access the materials).
The Electra team were joined at the event by a couple of clients from Aberdeen and each of them stated that the event provides the best learning experience for them as Maximo users and the value they can take back to their organisations is vast.
I would highly recommend coming along to the user groups if you are involved in Maximo. Here’s some dates for your diary:
• Energy Maximo User Group – 30th June 2022 – Aberdeen
• Europe Maximo User Group – October 2022 (date TBC) – London
• UK & Ireland Maximo User Group – 1st December 2022 – London
Send me a message at donna@electralearning.com if you want to find out more about the user groups.
Special thanks: The MUG events are run by a committee of Maximo users from different industries, who volunteer to keep these events going. Without their dedication and organisation these groups wouldn’t happen so a special thanks to the MUG committee.
Enabling Change Through Learning